Post
by Panda » Mon Oct 07, 2019 5:02 pm
Greetings,
Belenus is correct. I wouldn't say it must say penalty, but it's definitely a good start. The spell should indicate what the penalty is, rather than relying on a condition (unless that's how the table wants to roll). For example, Spirit Dart clearly has a penalty, but doesn't use that exact terminology. Whereas Ethereal Darkness causes a Full Darkness penalty to sight-based actions, but making it more Full Darkness doesn't particularly do anything. On the other hand, Spirit Grip offers two penalties, so one of them would be -4 (though as a GM, I would allow each to go to -3 in that instance if the player wanted). Pain is not affected because there's no penalty to make worse and it doesn't get to inflict more Wounds.
Hopefully this clarifies things.
Cheers,
Morgan